London studio Caruso St John has designed Gagosian’s third and largest gallery in London, which functions dark oak flooring and a glass ceiling .
Photograph by Hélène Binet
The new gallery – the seventh space Caruso St John has designed for the global art dealership – is positioned on Grosvenor Hill in Mayfair, on what was previously a complete city block occupied by a Brutalist 1960s advancement.
The development consisted of a residential tower and a two-storey office building with parking beneath. Regardless of appearing like a new freestanding developing, the 180-square-metre gallery is created making use of the skeleton of the workplace building.
Photograph by Hélène Binet
“What the task did was to demolish the framework of the office building back to the perimeter columns and some of the authentic roof beams, took out the floor, stiffened the structure to make this room,” architect Peter St John told Dezeen. “So essentially it really is the very same shape as the building that utilized to be right here, outside, and inside is entirely various.”
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Caruso St John’s interior features two double-height gallery spaces and two smaller sized connecting places, with massive openings in amongst. The gallery was made to give Gagosian the flexibility to show a selection of various works.
Photograph by Hélène Binet
“We essential much more versatility to make lots of diverse exhibitions,” gallery director Gary Waterston told Dezeen. “We tried to produce a room that was diverse, that wasn’t just concrete floor with exposed beams and fluorescent lighting, but some thing significantly a lot more of this neighbourhood.”
Caruso St John chose end-grain dark oak block for the floor of the gallery. The blocks used are quite massive in scale, so the development rings of the wood are sparser and more distinct.
While offering the impression of daylight, the glass ceiling in the gallery spaces includes artificial lower light, which evenly illuminates the area using comparatively small energy and with no generating heat.
Photograph by Hélène Binet
“There is a cavity behind the glass the depth of the steel construction in which there is an array of really closely spaced LED lights, which are the two warm and awesome bulbs,” stated St John. “We can differ the colour of the light to match the colour of the light of the sky. It can in fact relate to regardless of whether there is a cloud over the creating, which is amazing.”
A few almost-complete-height windows deliver more daylight into the white gallery spaces, while a black steel-framed door marks the entrance.
“Inside of the evident confines of designing versatile spaces, you try to stay away from the banal details and abrupt experience of art that is the regular way in a industrial gallery,” St John informed Dezeen. “The new Mayfair gallery is more refined, it has a stunning dark timber floor and a glass ceiling, like a museum. It is not like a loft or an industrial building.”
The back-of-property space is positioned by way of a hidden door and up a staircase. It has a more substantial floor space than the galleries themselves and contains offices, a wooden library, an artwork shop and viewing spaces to present clientele artworks.
The exterior of the building was finished by London practice TateHindle for the Grosvenor Estate – who have leased the developing to Gagosian for twenty years. The gallery is clad in handmade light-grey Roman bricks, which are longer and flatter than normal bricks.
Gagosian Grosevnor Hill is component of a cultural revival of the location. Latest additions contain the headquarters of Philips auction residence, Sadie Coles gallery and trend designer Hussein Chalayan’s 1st store.
Caruso St John has been working on Grosvenor Hill for 3 years. It truly is completion coincides with the London gallery they developed for British artist Damien Hirst’s private assortment, in a row of converted and extended theatre warehouses in Vauxhall.
The practice has designed each Gagosian’s other galleries in London – Britannia Street and Davies Street – as nicely as outposts in Hong Kong, Rome and Paris.
“[Gagosian] trust us, that is the critical thing,” said St John. “There is constantly uncertainty in working a practice, so we have been lucky to have them as repeat consumers. They are the only ones!”
20 Grovesnor Hill has opened with an exhibition of functions by American artist Cy Twombly, which includes two of his massive-scale Bacchus paintings that have never ever been proven in public. Cy Twombly is open till 12 December 2015.
